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Anchorage hospital opens Medicare clinic

ANCHORAGE — Providence Alaska Medical Center has opened a clinic in Anchorage that serves Medicare patients.

The Senior Care Center that opened Jan. 24 is starting slowly with about 200 patients, but eventually it hopes to serve 5,000 to 6,000 seniors. That’s nearly half of the seniors in the city who don’t have primary care health providers.

The Anchorage Daily News reports few primary care doctors in the city accept new Medicare patients because doctors say the federal payments for patients 65 and older are too low.

The Providence clinic pays salaries with productivity incentives, so doctors don’t have to worry about losing money by taking on more Medicare patients. The hospital is subsidizing the clinic with about $400,000 this year.